Being green is a lifestyle. Turns out, each of your neurons is deeply committed to that green lifestyle - and you didn't even know it. In just a thousandth of a second, a neuron can dump up to 5,000 molecules of its chemical messenger - a neurotransmitter - into the synapse, where it will trigger an impulse in a neighboring nerve cell. The neuron is a recycler par excellence when it comes to these neurotransmitters. Neurons must not only ready neurotransmitter receptors to receive the signals coming fast and furious, but they must also recycle receptors that have been used. And you thought you had recycling problems? Researchers have now determined the identity of one of the more significant features of a neuron's green architecture. They identified a cellular anchor that keeps the recycling machinery in place in the cell membrane so that it can recycle spent neurotransmitter receptors. The anchor is critical; without it, neurons would not be able to remove used receptors and install new ones in the cell membrane. And beyond being a mere anchor, the protein is part of a larger ensemble of proteins that help neurons adjust and maintain the strength of their signaling connections. Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Michael Ehlers and his colleagues published their discovery in the September 20, 2007, issue of the journal Neuron. Ehlers and his research team at Duke University Medical Center collaborated on the study with scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. © 2007 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10754 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Sometimes the maturity of a field of science can be measured by the heft of its ambition in the face of the next daunting unknown, the mystery yet to be cracked. Neurobiology probes the circuitry of the brain for the secrets of behaviors and thoughts that make humans human. High-energy physics seeks and may be on the verge of finding the so-called God particle, the Higgs boson thought to endow elementary particles with their mass. Cosmology is confounded by dark matter and dark energy, the pervasive but unidentified stuff that shapes the universe and accelerates its expansion. In the study of human origins, paleoanthropology stares in frustration back to a dark age from three million to less than two million years ago. The missing mass in this case is the unfound fossils to document just when and under what circumstances our own genus Homo emerged. The origin of Homo is one of the most intriguing and intractable mysteries in human evolution. New findings only remind scientists that answers to so many of their questions about early Homo probably lie buried in the million-year dark age. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 10753 - Posted: 09.19.2007

By David Biello Sons are tough on their mothers. Whether it is heavier birth weights, amplified testosterone levels or simple, hair-raising high jinks, boys seem to take an extra toll on the women who gave birth to them. And by poring over Finnish church records from two centuries ago, Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England can prove it: sons reduce a mother’s life span by an average of 34 weeks. The 33-year-old Finnish evolutionary biologist, aided by genealogists, has scoured centuries-old tomes (and decades-old microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records—and clues about the influence of evolution on human reproduction. Historians, economists and even sociologists have long used such tactics to explore their fields, but Lummaa is among the first biologists to enlist Homo sapiens as an animal whose population can be followed over time. After all, humans are relatively easy to track and offer the signal advantage of occasionally keeping detailed records. “I always wanted to work on primates,” Lummaa says. “But if I wanted to collect a similar data set on wild chimps, I would be struggling. I’ve decided to study another primate in the end.” Of late, one of her subjects has been premodern mothers among the Sami people of Finland, who are famous for their reindeer herding. Among this group, she found that those who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This discrepancy has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—as well as testosterone. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 10752 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and likely to disappear in this century. In fact, one falls out of use about every two weeks. Some languages vanish in an instant, at the death of the sole surviving speaker. Others are lost gradually in bilingual cultures, as indigenous tongues are overwhelmed by the dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television. New research, reported yesterday, has found the five regions where languages are disappearing most rapidly: northern Australia, central South America, North America’s upper Pacific coastal zone, eastern Siberia, and Oklahoma and the southwestern United States. All have indigenous people speaking diverse languages, in falling numbers. The study was based on field research and data analysis supported by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. The findings are described in the October issue of National Geographic and at languagehotspots.org. In a teleconference with reporters yesterday, K. David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore, said that more than half the languages had no written form and were “vulnerable to loss and being forgotten.” Their loss leaves no dictionary, no text, no record of the accumulated knowledge and history of a vanished culture. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 10751 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sue Major Holmes, Associated Press — Rex Jung says researchers need to understand how the brain is put together to better understand how it unravels. To that end, Jung — a research scientist at the Mind Research Network — and psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California Irvine's School of Medicine scoured the neuroscience literature and analyzed studies of reasoning and measures of intelligence to put together a theoretical model aimed at letting researchers study intelligence in a more systematic way. There's a lot of interest in measuring intelligence and how people solve tasks that require reasoning, said Jung. "The terms intelligence and IQ are just so infused in our culture. ... We like to know fundamentally how our brains differ from others," he said. Intelligence — the capacity of the brain to function well in a given setting — can be affected by such diseases as schizophrenia or Alzheimer's. "Understanding how the brain produces intelligent behavior may allow us to address the cognitive decline associated with some of these devastating diseases," Jung said. © 2007 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 10750 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A mutant gene can trigger mental retardation by preventing brain cells communicating with each other effectively, research shows. A team from Emory University examined the key gene mutation behind fragile X Syndrome - the most common cause of inherited mental retardation. They were able to use drugs to reverse the effects of the mutation in brain cells taken from rats. The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers hope their work could aid development of the first ever treatment for the condition. The Emory team first identified a mutant form of the FMR1 gene as the cause of fragile X Syndrome in 1991. People who carry this form of the gene - which is found on the X chromosome - fail to make a key protein called FMRP. The latest work shows that this chemical imbalance weakens the connections - or synapses - that cells make with their neighbours by effectively putting key receptors which facilitate communication out of commission. This breakdown in cell-to-cell communication can result in the mental deficits typical of fragile X. Precisely targeted drug therapy was able to restore the number of receptors in the synapses to their correct level - and ensure that cells were able to talk to each other properly. Lead researcher Professor Stephen Warren said: "We have now explained the fundamental defect in the brain in fragile X syndrome and, most importantly, found that we can correct this problem in the laboratory." (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 10749 - Posted: 09.18.2007

By Laura Sessions Stepp Consider the older man who slips into the bathroom before bedtime and surreptitiously swallows a Viagra pill. He decides against telling his wife, afraid she might think he's having a problem because he's no longer attracted to her. Now picture an older woman admitting to her girlfriend that sex with her husband isn't what it used to be. She'd like to suggest he try Viagra but hasn't, afraid that he'll feel more inadequate than she suspects he already does. A widely reported survey showed recently that older Americans live active sex lives. They are supported in this endeavor by an active pharmaceutical industry that reaps increasing profits from sales of sex-enhancing drugs. Viagra, used to treat erectile dysfunction, brought in $1.7 billion in 2006, for example; its rival Cialis, $971 million. But no matter how many pills, shots and creams drug companies dispense, therapists say, they are far from finding the potion that will truly enhance the sex lives of an aging population: the ability to talk freely about sex, or the lack thereof. Mortgage payments, Iraq, even a sick child are easier to discuss than sex, especially for boomers who grew up thinking they could have all the sex they wanted, at any time, only to find that they no longer can. When people are younger -- in their 20s and 30s -- the parts hum. But as bodies age, hormonal levels in both men and women change, sometimes not at the same time. One partner may be up for sex, the other not. © 2007 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10748 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER BOMBAY HOOK NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Del. — You can learn a lot by bird-watching with an ornithologist, and not just about birds. As Russell Greenberg, head of the migratory bird center at the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, gazed through powerful binoculars at a nondescript fence, a raspy chack-chack-chack sound like that of a cheap wind-up toy clattered off to the left. Dr. Greenberg, 54, a tall, bearded, wryly reserved man with a lifelong passion for birds, instantly identified the caller as a clapper rail, and though the bird remained stubbornly out of view, Dr. Greenberg seized the opportunity to share the surprising back story for a beloved cliché. “You know the old saying that so-and-so is ‘as thin as a rail?’ ” he asked. “Well, that comes from a reference to the bird.” The body of a rail, he explained, is “laterally compressed,” and looks from some angles to be almost two-dimensional. And you know the saying, “This place is for the birds,’’ as in, “What a dump”? We spent the day whizzing past dappled lakes and lush grasses in the refuge here in Smyrna, Del., stopping instead at the bleakest, barest, beige-brownest scratchpads of land we could find. As Dr. Greenberg had predicted, it was around drying mudholes and plowed-up sod farms that we would see a rich variety of migratory shorebirds: plovers with slick, licorice-jelly-bean bellies; greater yellowlegs sandpipers tottering daintily on their cracked-pencil limbs; avocets with their dusky rouge heads and their absurdly elongated, upcurling bills; and killdeer, named for the sound of their call and famed for the way they can fake a broken wing to lure would-be predators away from their nests. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Language
Link ID: 10747 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE Where do moral rules come from? From reason, some philosophers say. From God, say believers. Seldom considered is a source now being advocated by some biologists, that of evolution. At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage to social living. Could the behaviors evolved by social animals to make societies work be the foundation from which human morality evolved? In a series of recent articles and a book, “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, has been constructing a broad evolutionary view of morality that traces its connections both to religion and to politics. Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) began his research career by probing the emotion of disgust. Testing people’s reactions to situations like that of a hungry family that cooked and ate its pet dog after it had become roadkill, he explored the phenomenon of moral dumbfounding — when people feel strongly that something is wrong but cannot explain why. Dumbfounding led him to view morality as driven by two separate mental systems, one ancient and one modern, though the mind is scarcely aware of the difference. The ancient system, which he calls moral intuition, is based on the emotion-laden moral behaviors that evolved before the development of language. The modern system — he calls it moral judgment — came after language, when people became able to articulate why something was right or wrong. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 10746 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ned Stafford Twenty-six baby fish are now orbiting Earth aboard an unmanned Russian spacecraft, in a long-delayed experiment that researchers hope will lead to a better understanding of inner-ear balance mechanisms in humans. The cichlid fish (Oreochromis mossambicus) blasted off Friday morning (11:00 GMT) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in a Foton-M3 craft atop a Soyuz-U rocket, as part of a package of life and physical science experiments organized by the European Space Agency. Reinhard Hilbig and Ralf Anken, neuro- and developmental biologists at the University of Hohenheim in Germany, will monitor the larval fish to watch the growth of their otoliths — sensory organs that have a role in hearing and balance — in microgravity conditions during the 12-day mission. Otoliths, also found in the inner ear of humans, are sensitive to gravity and linear acceleration and are essential for maintaining proper balance. They are composed of a mix of gelatinous material and calcium carbonate, which shift around in a viscous fluid when the head moves, stimulating hair cells and conveying information about movement to the brain. Scientists think a misfunctioning otolith is the culprit for conditions such as Ménière's disease, which causes vertigo and 'ringing in the ears' in sufferers. But they do not yet understand exactly how this organ works. The otoliths of fish provide a good candidate for study, says Hilbig, because they function in exactly the same way as human ones but are considerably larger. This is because fish must orient themselves underwater, where other motion clues are suppressed. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 10745 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A report by the organizers of London Fashion Week is calling for children under the age of 16 to be banned from the catwalk. The British Fashion Council report also recommends models be screened for eating disorders, but stops short of recommending they be disqualified from Fashion Week for being too thin. The report, written by a panel of fashion designers, models and an eating-disorder specialist, asks modelling agencies to certify that their models have been examined for eating disorders. It recommends that starting next fall, models arrange and pay for the certification themselves from an accredited list of medical experts. The panel states that models are part of an at-risk group of professionals that includes athletes, classical ballet dancers and jockeys. It estimates up to 40 per cent of those working in such professions have eating disorders, compared with an estimated three per cent of the overall population. "The facts of the modelling profession are not so glamorous; it is peopled by young and potentially vulnerable workers — the majority of them women — who are self-employed and do not have adequate support," the report's authors write. © CBC 2007

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 10744 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM THE kiss you share with the exquisite stranger is electric, deep and seemingly endless — that is until you open an eye and see drool on your pillow. If only you could have slept long enough to consummate the seduction. Then again, you had no idea you were dreaming. Besides, you cannot control the nightly ride on the wings of your subconscious. Or can you? Maybe, if you learn to practice “lucid dreaming,” a state in which a sleeping person becomes aware he or she is dreaming and may even be able to direct the action. Those who regularly experience the phenomenon say that like the physics-defying characters in “The Matrix,” they are able to generate or manipulate the fantastical events that unfold. They can fly without wings, play instruments they never learned, go bowling with T. S. Eliot — and, yes, indulge sexual fantasies. It is likely some people have always had such dreams, said Jayne Gackenbach, a professor of psychology at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta, who conducts research into lucid dreaming. But the esoteric practice, which has been acknowledged in the West since at least 1867, seems on the verge of becoming much better known. A film exploring its allure, “The Good Night,” written and directed by Jake Paltrow and starring his sister, Gwyneth, Penélope Cruz and Martin Freeman, is opening Oct. 5. Depressed by his waking life, the film’s main character is determined to master the art of lucid dreaming to escape to an inspiring, sensual unreality with a lacquer-lipped knockout. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 10743 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford The compound androstenone can induce many reactions, depending on who is on the receiving end. For some, it smells sweet, like flowers or vanilla; to others it is foul, like sweat or urine. And then there are those who can't smell it at all. Now researchers have found the molecular receptor responsible for sensing androstenone, and the genetic variations behind its assorted olfactory impacts. The finding may one day help to settle the debate over whether the compound, which is a breakdown product of testosterone, acts as a pheromone in humans. Androstenone is known to be a key mating pheromone for pigs. "If you were a female pig who could not smell this, you would have a hard time on a date," says Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York and an author on the study. "It's a very exciting odour for pigs." Whereas the compound clearly fans the flames of porcine passion, its effect on humans is a matter of debate. Vosshall and her co-workers tested 335 putative human odorant receptors — more than 85% of the estimated full human complement — for responses to 66 different odours. One receptor, with the decidedly unsexy name OR7D4, yielded the strongest response to androstenone and it's close relative, androstadienone. It did not respond to the other 64 odorous compounds1. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 10742 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Dave Mosher If you can't remember where you left the car keys, take comfort in a new study that suggests the brain's memory capacity may be far lower than once thought. About 100 billion neurons, or brain cells, make up the average adult's brain, but the computer-based discovery shows our memory isn't based simply on neuron numbers. Instead, the limited amount of connections a neuron can make to other neurons may cut memory capacity. "People have suspected this for a long time, but we've shown it's possible for the first time in realistic memory networks," said study co-author Peter Latham, a neuroscientist at University College London. Latham and his colleague's findings are detailed online in the journal PLoS Computational Biology. Neurons produce electrical signals that travel through each cell's 10,000-or-so "cables" of nerve tissue, each connected to another neuron to form a "network" of communicating cells. Latham explained, however, that neurons often produce random, meaningless signals that create noise in neuron-to-neuron speech. "Thankfully, the vast amount of noise averages out so our brain can do something useful," Latham said, such as interpret the signals carrying the memory of where you last placed your car keys. © 2007 MSNBC.com © 2007 Microsoft

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 10741 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALAN SCHWARZ To Kelby Jasmon, there was only one answer. The question: If he received yet another concussion this football season, while playing offensive and defensive line for his high school in Springfield, Ill., would he tell a coach or trainer? Jasmon, with his battering-ram, freshly buzz-cut head and eyes that danced with impending glory, immediately answered: “No chance. It’s not dangerous to play with a concussion. You’ve got to sacrifice for the sake of the team. The only way I come out is on a stretcher.” Jasmon, a senior with three concussions on his résumé, looked at two teammates for support and unity. They said the same thing with the same certainty: They did not quite know what a concussion was, and would never tell their coaches if they believed they had sustained one. Matt Selvaggio, who plays with Jasmon on both lines, said: “Our coaches would take us out in a second. So why would we tell them?” Many of the 1.2 million teenagers who play high school football are chanting similar war whoops as they strap on their helmets. They either do not know what a concussion is or they simply do not care. Their code of silence, bred by football’s gladiator culture, allows them to play on and sometimes be hurt much worse — sometimes fatally. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 10740 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By PETER JARET Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease. Sometimes, the cure is the disease. Four percent of Americans suffer headaches daily, and scientists have suspected culprits as diverse as undiagnosed jaw disorders, genetic susceptibility and stress. But according to recent research, a sizeable and growing number of headaches are being caused by the very medications taken to alleviate them — and the problem is far more common than scientists had realized. Half of chronic migraines, and as many as 25 percent of all headaches, are actually “rebound” episodes triggered by the overuse of common pain medications. Both prescription and over-the-counter drugs may be to blame. Patients begin by popping too many pills to deal with a migraine or a simple tension-type headache. When the medications stop, another headache follows, similar to a hangover. Sufferers race again to the medicine cabinet, and before long they are locked in a cycle of headaches and overmedication. At any given time, more than three million Americans are suffering from headaches they are inflicting on themselves, according to Dr. Stephen D. Silberstein, a professor of neurology and director of the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “If a patient’s headaches have grown markedly worse or more frequent, the problem is almost always medication overuse,” Dr. Silberstein said. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 10739 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gisela Telis If, as Roy Orbison sang, "Only the lonely" know how you feel tonight, you may need a doctor. A new study shows that loneliness may change how certain genes in the body work, leaving chronically lonely people with less effective immune systems and lower defenses against disease. The results, if confirmed, could enable doctors to better prevent those ills for which the lonely are at greater risk, such as heart disease, infection, age-related dementia, and certain types of cancer. Everyone feels lonely from time to time, but some people have it much worse. These individuals consistently feel lonely for years, often despite having friends and family. Researchers have long known that such chronically lonely people are less healthy. They suspected cortisol, a hormone that regulates the body's response to stressful or threatening situations, was to blame, because it's found in higher levels in people who feel isolated. But the mechanism remained a mystery, and one nagging question persisted: If inflammation drives most loneliness-linked diseases, how can cortisol, with its anti-inflammatory properties, be the culprit? Steve Cole, a genomics researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and colleagues tracked a group of 153 people in their 50s and 60s, in hopes they'd provide an answer. The team ranked the volunteers using the UCLA Loneliness Scale, a test that measures a subject's loneliness by their responses to statements such as "I'm alone in the world" and "There's no one I can count on," regardless of how many people they know or spend time with. The researchers then studied DNA from the white blood cells of eight people who scored in the top 15th percentile of loneliness and six who scored in the bottom 15th percentile. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 10738 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An experimental body cooling treatment used on an injured National Football League player offers promise for preventing paralysis in people who sustain severe spinal cord injuries, experts said on Thursday. But the value of "modest hypothermia," the treatment used on Kevin Everett of the Buffalo Bills after he was injured in a game on Sunday, remains controversial among some doctors who want to see more evidence it helps those patients. The idea behind the treatment is to lower the body temperature -- but not by too much in order to avoid other complications -- to restrict damage to the spinal cord. "Right now, it's not mainstream medicine," said Dr. Barth Green, co-founder of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami, who has helped develop the treatment. "But it's an amazing technique," said Green, who has consulted with Everett's doctors. "I think it's very likely he's going to walk again. Nothing is guaranteed in life. But every day he's getting better." Everett, 25, sustained the injury tackling an opposing player in an apparently routine play. He is being treated at Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital in Buffalo, New York. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion; Regeneration
Link ID: 10737 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan A population of nerve cells crucial for proper brain wiring may serve a completely different function in adult and fetal brains, according to a new study in The Journal of Neuroscience. Previously, most of these cells, known as subplate neurons, were thought to die off shortly after development, leaving behind 10 to 20 percent of the original fleet as nonfunctional remnants. Several tests conducted by a pair of researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, however, revealed that the leftover neurons are not just vestiges but electrically active messengers that can send and receive signals to and from any of the six layers of the cerebral cortex (the brain's outermost layer, which is essentially the brain's central processing unit). The function of subplate neurons have yet to be determined, but the study's senior author, Michael Friedlander, chair of Baylor's department of neuroscience, speculates that it is possible they can be coaxed to reprise their fetal role of developing proper circuits between neurons to possibly rewire and repair the cortex after a brain injury. During development, subplate neurons serve as bridges and scaffolding while connections are established between neurons in the cortex and other cell populations in the thalamus, a midbrain structure responsible for sensory processing, motor control and consciousness. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Stem Cells
Link ID: 10736 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Bruce Bower In October 2004, Swedish neuroscientist Bjorn Merker packed up his video camera and joined five families for a 1-week get-together in Florida that featured several visits to the garden of childhood delights known as Disney World. For Merker, though, the trip wasn't a vacation. With the parents' permission, he came to observe and document the behavior of one child in each family who had been born missing roughly 80 percent of his or her brain. These children, 1 to 5 years old at the time of their Disney adventure, had suffered strokes as fetuses or had experienced other medical problems shortly before or after birth that destroyed nearly all of the brain's outer layer, or cortex. In this rare condition, called hydranencephaly, cerebrospinal fluid fills the gaping hole within the child's head. Such youngsters often die in the first year of life as a result of seizures, cerebral palsy, lung abnormalities, and a variety of other physical ailments. With proper medication and the installation of shunts to drain fluid from the braincase, however, some individuals live 20 years or more. Neurologists typically regard hydranencephaly as an anatomical sentence to a lifelong "vegetative state." Such children supposedly validate a brutally simple equation: Little or no cortex equals no awareness of any kind. ©2007 Science Service.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10735 - Posted: 06.24.2010